Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1880 — Origin of Brandy. [ARTICLE]

Origin of Brandy.

Brandy began to be discovered in France about the year 1313, but it was prepared only as a medicine, and was considered as possessing such marvelous strengtiiening and sanitary powers that tho physicians named it “the water of life” (eau cle vie), a name it retains, though now rendered, by excessive potations, one of life’s most powerful and most prevalent destroyers. Raymond Lully, a disciple of Arnold da Villa Nova, considered this admirable essence of wine to be an emanation from the divinity, and that it was intended to reanimate and prolong the life of man. He even thought that this discovery indicated that the timo had arrived for the consummation of all things— the end of the world. Before the means of determining the quantity of alcohol in spirits were known, the dealers were in the habit of employing a very rude method of forming a notion of the strength. A given quantity of the spirits was poured upon a quantity of gunpowder in a dish and set on fire. If at the end of the combustion the gunpowder continued dry enough it took tire and exploded; but if it bad been wet by the water in the spiiits, the flames of the alcohol went out without setting the powder on fire. This was called the proof. Spirits which kindled gunpowder were said to be above proof; those that did not set fire to it were said to be below proof. From this origin of the term “proof” it is obvious that its meaning must have been at first very indefinite. It could serve only to point out those spirits which were too weak to kindle gunpowder, but could not give any information respecting the relative strength of those spirits which were above proof. Even the strength of proof was not fixed, because it was influenced by the quantity of spirits employed—a small quantity of a weaker spirit might be made to kindle gunpowder, while a greater quantity of a stronger might fail. Clarke, in his hydrometer, which was invented about the year 1730, fixed the strength of proof spirits on the stem at the specific gravity of 9.920 at the temperature of 60 deg. This is the strength at which proof spirit is fixed in Great Britain by act of Parliament, and at this strength it is no more than a mixture of forty-nine pounds of pure alcohol with fifty-one pounds of water. Brandy, rum, gin, hollands, geneva and whisky contain nearly similar proportions.